February 19, 1970

Mr. Paul N. MeCloskey, Jr.
Congreas of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, D. C. 20515

Dear Pete,

Yhank you for your letter of February l€th and for having followed
up my concern about the reshuffling that involved Tom Williams. As is
often the case, the problems, and they were real ones, stemmed from the
thoughtlessness of people in the lower echelons and when Williams succeeded
in bringing his troubles to Mr. Venneman's attention an adjustment that
I think was pretty much to everyone's satisfaction was worked out. I taiked
to Williams after writing you and discovered that one of the ways that
“Tom Williams value has been recognized" was strong pressure on him to
accept a reduction in rating as a companion to hia transfer to his new job.
However, when this waa brought to the attention of a responsible level, as
I learned later, the absurdity was rectified.

Now that this has blown over - and it is perhape likely that your
conversation with Lew Butler did make some waves in the right places,
I think that there would be some real mert£t in your getting to know
Williams personally, which fs probably even more to the point in his new
position than ever before.

I am starting to collect my thoughts on the question of policies
that influence population distribution and, knowing your deep interest
in land use, I would be grateful for any legislative material that you
may have conveniently at hand that could help me order my thinking about
it. |

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Profeesor of Genetics '

JL/rr